st. thomas - strangers out of blue

News Page January 2003: News from the St. Thomas world, and updates to this page in January 2003. This page is not an official source of information, if in doubt of accuracy of info please get in touch with webmaster of this page or the info source.

January 29th 2003 - Some articles in both English and Norwegian have been added to the articles section. Twelve articles have been added, many many more are on the way, but unfortunately they take a lot of time to transcribe and re-encode into the HTML format used on this page. There are now a total of 127 St. Thomas articles available, so there should be more than enough to read even if the newest articles are not available yet.

January 28th 2003 - Great news today, as St. Thomas' "A Long Long Time EP" went straight to number two on the official Norwegian singles chart list, VG Topp 20, after its first week of sale! The EP has sold more than 2.600 copies, and was only beaten by Eminem on the charts. Only slight problem is the EP is out of stock already, and due to digipak cover it takes longer time to make new copies, but a new batch should be shipped by Friday this week.

The EP has only received great reviews so far, and the video for "A Long Long Time" has been aired on TV2, NRK2 and will be playlisted on the music channel ZTV this week. Hopefully MTV Nordic will also choose to playlist it.

The St. Thomas documentary "Be Cool, Be Nice" was aired on "Lydverket" on NRK1 last Wednesday. Apparently close to a quarter of a million Norwegian watched the program, which is very impressing and most likely caused by the large amounts of mentions of the programs in dozens of St. Thomas articles in the press in the weeks before the airing.

The documentary is a very fine piece of work, Erik Hannemann has done a great job of filming the right things and editing it very well along with people from NRK who helped him out. The documentary is sometimes painfully honest, showing what touring can be like when not everything goes by the plan. There will be a proper guide to the documentary along with screenshots and video clips from it available in the videography section soon!

There will be more St. Thomas appearances on Norwegian television:

Thursday January 30th 2003
15:50-16:00 - Sone 2 (Intro) - TV2
16:25-17:00 - Sone 2 (Program) - TV2
01:30-01:40 - Sone 2 (Intro) - TV2 (re-run)
01:40-02:15 - Sone 2 (Program) - TV2 (re-run)

Friday January 31st 2003
16:03-17:00 - VG-lista Topp 20 - NRK1
17:15-17:55 - VG-lista Topp 20 (continued) - NRK1
17:15-17:54 - VG-lista Topp 20 with SMS-chat - NRK2

Saturday February 1st 2003
17:45-19:22 - VG-lista Topp 20 - NRK2 - (re-run)

Saturday February 22nd 2003
XX:XX-XX:XX - Spellemannsprisen - TV2

The appearance on "Store Studio" on NRK1 TV and NRK P2 radio on Wednesday last week went very well, and Thomas said it was the best they had ever played. They played "A Long Long Time" on the television broadcast, and "The Cool Song" and "New Apartment" on the radio broadcast, in addition to Thomas being interviewed. Thomas played with his new line-up consisting of Steven Sellick on guitar, Ivar Chr. Johansen on piano and melodica, Bosse Litzheim on drums and Øyvind Thune on bass.

On "God Morgen Norge" on TV2 the morning after, only Thomas and Bosse appeared, with Bosse playing the melodica. Actually he was pretending to play the melodica, as they performed "A Long Long Time" with playback and voice-over. The reason for this was simply that they had to be there at six o'clock in the morning and did not feel like doing more than a line-check for the vocals at such a time of the day.

After the TV performance Thomas and Bosse flew to Tromsø for the first concert on the short Norwegian tour to promote the new EP, and then went to Trondheim the night after for a concert that had sold out. Even though the band featured on "Store Studio" is the new St. Thomas & His Magic Club line-up, only Thomas and Bosse will appear at the concerts on this tour. Even though they are only two people, they apparently manage to do a loud performance that also features a lot of karaoke.

The short tour continues with concerts at So What in Oslo on February 5th, at Checkpoint Charlie in Stavanger on the 6th and at Hulen in Bergen on the 7th.

On or around February 24th, Thomas will go on a seven or eight day promotional tour in all of Europe to promote the forthcoming "Hey, Harmony" album. Check for news reports in European media around that time.

There have been slight changes to this page, as a lot of of the page design has been made into scripts instead of usual HTML. Please let me know if anything does not look the way it is supposed to do.

In addition I am very proud to announce that this page now has a new domain, http://www.stthomas1976.com! Lots of people have had problems finding this page, hopefully that should be easier with the new domain. And for those wondering, 1976 is the year Mr. Hansen was born. The old domain will keep working for some time, but please update any links or bookmarks to the new domain as the old domain will eventually be used for something else.

January 22nd 2003 - Here is an updated schedule of upcoming St. Thomas appearances on Norwegian television and radio, thanks to Claes Olsen at Racing Junior for some of this information.

Wednesday January 22nd 2003
22:00-22:30 - Store Studio - NRK1
22:30-23:00 - Store Studio - NRK P2
22:30-23:00 - Lydverket - NRK1

Thursday January 23rd 2003
06:28-09:30 - God Morgen Norge - TV2
10:00-11:40 - God Morgen Norge - TV2 (re-run)

Friday January 24th 2003
23:10-23:40 - Store Studio - NRK2 (re-run)

Sunday January 26th 2003
23:40-00:10 - Lydverket - NRK2 (re-run)

Monday January 27th 2003
14:30-15:00 - Store Studio - NRK P2 (re-run)

Thursday January 30th 2003
15:50-16:00 - Sone 2 (Intro) - TV2
16:25-17:00 - Sone 2 (Program) - TV2
01:30-01:40 - Sone 2 (Intro) - TV2 (re-run)
01:40-02:15 - Sone 2 (Program) - TV2 (re-run)

Saturday February 22nd 2003
XX:XX-XX:XX - Spellemannsprisen - TV2

Some notes about the schedule: On the program "Store Studio" on NRK1 St. Thomas will play "A Long Long Time" most likely towards the end of the program. On "Store Studio" on NRK P2 radio St. Thomas will most likely play two songs. In the program "God Morgen Norge" St. Thomas is scheduled to appear at about 08:45 in the original airing. See news update from January 14th for additional information.

Click here to see the cover of "A Long Long Time EP," which was released on Monday. It has only been getting positive reviews so far, and should be available for sale at any decent record store in Norway.

The video for "A Long Long Time" is finished, and a clip from it was shown on the program "Absolutt Underholdning" on TV2 last night. The video looks really great, and since I taped the program I have made a video file of the thirty-six second clip that was shown that those who want to can download. The video file is 3.472 kB and should not take too long time to download even for people with a modem connection. It has been encoded into AVI using a DivX codec, and to play it you will need a video or media player installed on your computer plus a codec that can play DivX-encoded files. A new version of for example Windows Media Player should be enough to be able to play this file.

Click here to download the video clip of "A Long Long Time." Some screenshots from the video plus some info about it has been added to the videography.

January 21st 2003 - There have been quite a couple of articles about St. Thomas and "A Long Long Time EP" reviews in Norwegian papers lately. All of these that I can find will be added to the articles page as soon as I the time. Here are some links to a couple of these articles: Short review at the bottom of this page at Nettavisen today, review and article from VG today, review and article in Friday's edition of Oslopuls in Aftenposten Aften and an article at Panorama.

Remember to watch "Store Studio" and "Lydverket" on NRK1 tomorrow night, as St. Thomas will appear on both programs, the latter featuring the Erik Hannemann documentary "Be Cool, Be Nice." See news from January 14th for complete airing schedule.

January 17th 2003 - According to Claes at Racing Junior, St. Thomas' German record label City Slang decided this week that "Hey, Harmony" will be released in Europe this spring, not in Autumn as previously reported. An exact release date has not been confirmed, but the first week of April is apparently not too unlikely.

The Norwegian music website Panorama published an article about St. Thomas today, which can be read here. It says the "A Long, Long Time" EP will be released on Monday, January 20th, and will contain the songs "A Long, Long Time", "Sugarmilk Coffee," "Ride," "Something Happened" and "America."

Today the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet published a one-page article about St. Thomas. The article focuses on the healthier aspects of Thomas' current situation, such as him not drinking any longer, training well, having lost several kilos since last time he was on tour and playing football in the Norwegian fourth division.

January 14th 2003 - As mentioned in a recent news posting, the St. Thomas documentary previously known as "The Cool Song," now known as "Be Coo,l Be Nice", will be aired on Norwegian television on Wednesday January 22nd, the same day St. Thomas will be appearing on another program where half of the program is aired on television and the second half on radio. The documentary will be aired on the program "Lydverket," and on the program "Store Studio" St. Thomas will be playing three or four songs live. Unfortunately, the radio-half of "Store Studio" is aired at the same time as "Lydverket" is being aired on television, so here is a complete schedule for everyone who wants to make sure they get to see and hear everything:

Wednesday January 22nd 2003
22:00-22:30 - Store Studio - NRK1
22:30-23:00 - Store Studio - NRK P2
22:30-23:00 - Lydverket - NRK1

Friday January 24th 2003
23:10-23:40 - Store Studio - NRK2

Sunday January 26th 2003
23:40-00:10 - Lydverket - NRK2

Monday January 27th 2003
14:30-15:00 - Store Studio - NRK P2

NRK1 is a major television channel and should be accessible for anyone with a television set based in Norway, it might also be possible to get access to this channel in Sweden and Denmark too. NRK2 is a smaller television channel that you need satellite or cable to access except if you live in the big cities in Norway. NRK P2 is a big radio channel, and should be easily found for anyone in Norway. I have no idea about accessing this channel from outside of Norway, but it is possible to listen to NRK P2 over the Internet at NRK.no. Choose "P2" in the box to the left of "HØR" in the menu at the top of the main page and then click the "HØR" button. Choose "ISDN" or "Modem" in the box that pops up, and the rest should be easy to figure out.

In addition to all this, the radio part of "Store Studio" is also filmed but not aired on television, last year it was possible to watch a video stream of the radio part on the home pages of "Store Studio," but it is unknown if this option will be available this year. More information on this as we get closer to airing date, I suppose.

January 11th 2003 - There have been some updates to the Discography, The Concert Chronology and the Videography, mostly just adding the information from yesterday's news into the appropriate sections of the page.

January 10th 2003 - The St. Thomas show is ready to roll again, with a Norwegian release of "A Long Long Time" EP kicking things off on January 20th. The EP will apparently feature five tracks from the recent St. Thomas recordings in Nashville, "A Long, Long Time" being the title track and the other four not having been confirmed yet. Most likely the EP will not be released outside of Norway until Summer or Autumn, if it is released at all.

The EP release co-incides with the St. Thomas documentary by Erik Hannemann, "Be Cool, Be Nice" (formerly known as "The Cool Song") being aired on Norwegian televison channel NRK1 two days after the EP-release, on January 22nd. On the same evening, St. Thomas will be guests on the talkshow "Store Studio" on NRK1 television and NRK P2 radio, performing three or four songs live on the show. The documentary will be thirty minutes long, a one-hour version has also been made but it is unknown if that one will ever be aired.

The night after that, a short Norwegian St. Thomas tour starts with a concert at Blå Rock in Tromsø on January 23rd, and a concert at Blæst in Trondheim the night afterwards. The tour takes a short break before the band plays at So What in Oslo on February 5th, at Checpoint Charlie in Stavanger on the 6th and at Hulen in Bergen on the 7th. More concert dates have not been booked.

There have been some changes in the St. Thomas & The Magic Club line-up since the American tour. Espen Mellingen on guitar is no longer a member of The Magic Club, it is still unknown who will be replacing him. Currently the band only consists of Thomas and Bosse, but Thomas expressed a wish to have a band consisting of four people, and hopefully a bit more stable line-up than what has been the case lately.

The third St. Thomas album, "Hey, Harmony", will be released on Racing Junior in Norway on March 17th. Slightly bad news is that City Slang, who are responsible for St. Thomas releases in all of Europe except for Scandinavia, have delayed the release of the album until Autumn. Whether there will be a North American release is unknown. The good news is St. Thomas seems to be signing a deal with the Australian label Spunk within short time, and that they want to release the new album with their partners in Japan.

There will more than likely be a European tour some time during Spring, and hopefully some appearances at music festivals during the Summer, but all of this is in the blue and nothing has been officially decided yet.

"A Long, Long Time" was released as a radio single on December 6th, and has been doing very well so far. It has been A-listed on the Norwegian radio channel NRK P3, meaning it gets heavy rotation on the channel and is played several times per day. A music video for the song was recorded on December 21st and 22nd at Gamle Rikshospitalet in Oslo, Norway, with Lasse Gretland directing. Gretland has previously made music videos for other Norwegian artists such as Briskeby, Big Bang and Jaga Jazzist.

Unfortunately I was unable to attend the recording of the video, but Thomas could tell that the beginning would be very much like the opening sequence of the movie "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" with Jack Nicholson, and that in the video Thomas would be in a psychiatric ward where he would meet 'lots of strange people.' The video is set to be finalized this Monday.

As is common when fairly well-known artists release new material, there will be some press around the time of the release. That is also the case with St. Thomas. Today Thomas had a visit from a journalist from Aftenposten, and they did an interview that is scheduled to be be on the cover and on two full pages in the Oslopuls-section of the paper next Friday. Next week there will be interviews for the two huge newspapers VG and Dagbladet.

Be prepared to see Thomas in a nice suit if you buy any of those papers or go to a St. Thomas concert in the near future, as that will be the new concert outfit. You heard it here first. The reason for that is that Thomas is the source of most of the news presented here, including that last tidbit.

That should wrap up this update, hopefully nothing has been accidentally left out. Now that things are starting to get very interesting with an EP-release, concerts and an album release, this page will be much more frequently updated in the near future that it has been in the last couple of months.